Same problem, different context

November 15, 2005

When it comes to the war in Iraq, part of the president’s problem is that he manipulated information, removing context and meaning, in order to get the results he wanted. So, now that he’s under fire, how does he defend the war? As Ryan Lizza noted in a terrific TNR piece today, Bush’s new strategy depends on manipulating information, removing context and meaning, in order to get the results he wants.

A key component of the new White House offensive, for example, is using quotes from Dem senators. Unfortunately, he’s not using them well.

For example, Bush quoted Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) at a speech yesterday in Alaska. Bush told U.S. troops that Levin said, “The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.” But is that all Levin said? Not so much. Here’s the full context from December 2001:

“The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as he is in power. But that does not mean he is the next target.

“And the commitment to do that, it seems to me, could be disruptive of our alliance that still has work to do in Afghanistan. And a lot will depend on what the facts are in various places as to what terrorist groups are doing, and as to whether or not we have facts as to whether or not the Iraqis have been involved in the terrorist attack of September 11, or whether or not Saddam is getting a weapon of mass destruction and is close to it. So facts will determine what our next targets are.”

Bush — or, more accurately, the people who tell Bush what to say — took Levin’s comments and changed the meaning entirely. Levin, who voted against the Iraq resolution in 2002, wanted the emphasis to remain on Afghanistan and had real doubts about WMD in Iraq. And yet, to the president tell it, Levin is now a hypocrite because he has concerns about the war and the intelligence upon which it was based. What’s more, Bush says Levin “reached the same conclusion” on Iraq as Bush — which is painfully ridiculous.

Of course, Levin wasn’t Bush’s only victim.

Bush quoted Harry Reid as saying, “Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think the President is approaching this in the right fashion.” But what was the context for the remarks? Here’s what Reid said in September 2002:

“As you know when his father went into Iraq, we had a very good debate. Some said one of the best debates in the last 40 years in Congress. We’re going to have a debate. But I think we have to acknowledge what’s gone on in Iraq. Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think that the president’s approaching this in the right fashion. He’s now trying to get the international community to join. Secretary Powell is basically living in New York, working with international community. And we have made progress.”

As Lizza noted, Reid was expressing support for diplomacy at the U.N. — which happened to be the path Bush abandoned so he could launch his invasion.

The irony is rich. To defend his rhetorical deceptions, Bush has to resort to rhetorical deceptions.

What a tangled web Bush weaves…

But, the public, in general, will only hear Bush’s talking point not the truth.So, even though we know these statements are misleading and outright falsehoods the damage is done. Rebuttals will never get enough air to knock down his talking point.

  • It’s time that Dem politicians stepped up to the plate and called Bush on it. Someone has to have the guts to just come out and tell the people Bush is a liar.

  • Actually, the “liar” term is cropping up more and more often. In the first years of the administration, the lies went unnoticed. Then they were noticed, but called, at worst, mistruths, or something to that effect. But lately, the liar word is out in the open. However, there are still too many people, especially politicians, afraid to use it. But progress is being made. If we dont let people forget about the fraud that was the Medicare prescription bill, the lies that were bandied about during its passage, and all the other similar lies, eventually the liar label will be stuck on him. This is very similar to the situation when you have a good friend, who has a boyfriend or girlfriend who you clearly know is a liar. Yet many other people are willing to overlook lies at first, because it seems like he is “such a nice guy”, “so charming”, etc etc. Same thing we heard about Bush. Personable, strong leader, etc. But it was all bullshit and when you keep piling up BS the pile grows until it obscures your vision of anything else, and you can no longer go on imagining it’s not there. I think we are reaching that point now, but we have to push harder. And the best thing about this push, is that it makes them dig deeper, which is exactly what this post shows.

  • maybe Bush meant it when he said he doesn’t react to the polls – he certainly isn’t trying to address the ones that say the public no longer finds him trustworthy!

  • When will we see a 30-second ad showing Bush quoting a Dem out of context juxtaposed with the Dem’s remark played back in its entirety?

  • But the Dems actual statements can’t be
    put into a sound bite, and they are
    nuanced – you have to engage your
    brain to understand them. So the
    media will never play them, never
    challenge Bush’s deceptive sound
    bites. Hard to beat them.

    I’m surprised he’s not quoting the
    Dems who voted for authorization
    and still support the war, like Hillary
    and Biden, and kind of, sort of,
    maybe, Kerry with an asterisk, with
    his 20,000 pullout proposal.

    This is the time for the Big Dems to
    finally step up to the plate and pull
    an Edwards. Will they do it? I’m
    betting a big NOPE. If they did,
    something might just happen to
    this Republican house of cards.

  • hark,

    The press won’t do anything, but this could easily be covered in TV ads. Play the Bush statement, then say “here’s the context”, then play the original (read by someone else if the original visual is unavailable). It would work.

  • Ed’s right, it would work, but it would require Democrats to do more than throw softballs. Forget a little press Q and A in the hallway, have a huge press conference, call the president out, make a spectacle of it and, most importantly, make it a challenge to his masculine integrity (I’m not sure I know what that is, but I’m sure it needs to be there for the cowboy).

    As much as I may dislike the filth and corruption that this administration seems bent on passing off as leadership, I have a darker place reserved in my heart for those who hold the power to do something about it, yet fail to act meaningfully. I’m tired of the grass-roots ideas of “let’s take back the power”—we have the power, and we elected people with it, and they need to do their job.

    So, to all you politicians out there: start swinging, guys. Hard.

  • I am old enough to remember Senator Joe McCarthy, and the stuff Bush is pulling now is frightningly similar.

  • Shrub will probably have Liebold contribute their voting machines to the Iraqi election so he can put Chalabi in as PM or president or whatever the hell they’ll have. Then the Shrub administration will pay money under the table to keep Chalabi “friendly” to US policies (like having a permanent US base in Iraq) and then with the next US president, which probably won’t be another Republican, the under the table payments will stop and there will be a full fledged civil war on the next president’s “watch”. That is assuming our president with an exceptional IQ of 81 can hold things together that long. Presently, they’ll “rattle the cage” of Syria frequently to keep things stirred up and try to distract us from all of their other screwups.

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